The Autosport International Racing Car Show, once again held in
conjunction with the Performance Car Show, ran between 14 – 17 January
at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham. Altogether the shows
occupied 9 halls of the complex, including a Live Action Arena, and an
“Adrenaline Zone” where one could buy passenger rides in a Ginetta G50
and drifted round a purpose built slalom course. If you wanted to take the
wheel yourself, no problem, you just had to head to the adjacent Go Kart
track, where there were races and arrive and drive sessions throughout the
duration of the show. For the first two days of the show two of the halls were
occupied by the Autosport Engineering Show, which is dedicated to
companies providing race engineering technology and products. Whilst if
you were looking for a career in motor sport then there were a number of
universities offering courses to various levels, with hands on experience with
racing teams sometimes being part of the curriculum.

The main attraction at any motor show is the cars, and the Autosport and Performance Car shows certainly
provided attendees with the opportunity to see a wide variety of vehicles, spanning virtually every form of motor
sport imaginable, from Karts to Formula One, and along the way introducing people to forms of motor sport
that they never knew existed. There was also a broad selection of niche market manufacturers presenting
cars that one would be unlikely to find in the local supermarket car park, giving yet another thread of interest
to visitors. There were a number of premieres for small manufacturers, together with a wide variety of racing
cars from all areas of motor sport, both ancient and modern, plus a Coys Auction with a further interesting
selection of cars on offer, which was held on the Saturday.

There was also the regular feature of the F1 grid, allowing visitors to get a rare close-up view of recent F1
cars, whilst the Williams F1 team had an impressive display with their track motorhome as backdrop to a
variety of their F1 contenders over the years. This extended into the Autosport stage, where there were regular
interview sessions from personalities from a variety of motor sport fields, with amongst those in attendance
being Damon Hill, Allan McNish and Felipe Massa, along with Phil Read and Wayne Gardner from the “two
wheel world”. One of the cars fronting the stage was the FIA WEC World Championship winning Porsche 919,
and alongside it was the new Ford GT race car, which would make its race debut at the Rolex 24 at Daytona
later in the month. Another feature of the Williams display was the presence of the Jaguar C-X75, which
features in the latest James Bond movie “Spectre”, as this was produced in collaboration with Williams
Advanced Engineering, the arm of the company that transfers F1 technology into other parts of the automobile
market.

Amongst the cars on display in the Performance Car Show section were a Ferrari 488 GTB, an Aston Martin
Vulcan, both courtesy of Autocar magazine, a McLaren MP4-12C, together with an array of Porsches, a
variety of bespoke personalised cars and SUVs, and a “Top Ten Hatch” display of iconic hatchbacks
produced over the years, with the vote going to the original Peugeot 205 GTI 1.6. There were two examples of
the track only version of the McLaren P1, with the suffix GTR, one being in the yellow and green “Harrods”
livery as used on a F1 GT in the 1995 Le Mans 24 Hour Race. A car that attracted a lot of attention was a
new racing GT car from Poland, the Arriner Hussarya GT, with a mid-mounted 6.2 litre V8 engine, finished in
silver and bare carbon fibre with red accents, which will be raced in the European GT4 series. A competitor in
this series, also on display was the Sin R1 from Germany, whilst Praga from Czechoslovakia showed their
first road car since 1947, the R1R, which will be produced in a limited edition run of 68 examples. Other niche
manufacturers with new offerings were Ginetta with their G57 sports racing prototype, Zenos with their E10 R
road legal track day car, a new name, Avatar, with a mid-engine sports car powered by either a 2.0 or 2.3 litre
Ford Ecoboost engine, and BAC with the 2016 version of their Mono sports car. There were also plenty of
classic race cars on display, ranging from original Mini Coopers to a McLaren M8C CanAm car. Classic Team
Lotus always put on a great display, which this year included a Type 49 in Gold Leaf colours, a Type 12 F2
car in bare running chassis form with the body displayed behind it, and the 1971 gas turbine powered four

wheel drive Type 56B F1 car. Whether it was ancient or modern, on or off road, two or four wheels, there really
was something on display to satisfy virtually every taste.